The Government should not get bogged down in trying to root out Islamic fundamentalists after the latest London terror attack.

So said Gloucestershire-based terrorism expert Arthur Snell after hearing Prime Minister Theresa May speak following last night’s incident, that saw three people shot dead after killing seven people and injuring 48 more on London Bridge and the nearby Borough Market.

Mrs May said that after three terrorist attacks in Britain in the last three months, it was “time to say enough was enough”. She said: “We cannot, and must not, pretend that things can continue as they are” and added that the incidents were “bound together by the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism”.

Read More

But Mr Snell, who lives near Painswick, said while he understand that people wanted answers and hope going forward after such awful happenings, he disagreed that it was time for a change in the way society dealt with the problem.

He said: “It was a horrible incident, particularly terrifying. But ultimately it’s a not a game changer.

Arthur Snell

“We need to step back a bit. The police response was extraordinary. Ten or 15 years ago they couldn’t have done that.”

Mr Snell, a former diplomat who was posted to Baghdad for several years after the allied invasion of Iraq, said rather than reportedly taking eight minutes to shoot dead the attackers, they would have taken about half an hour and many more lives would have been lost.

He said the quicker response was due to better training and resources having been provided for the police and he believed that such continue.

Armed police officers on London Bridge during the incident

There would always be people willing to carry out acts of extreme violence but it may well be because they had personal issues and/or mental health problems rather than fundamental religious beliefs, he said.

Targeting one religion and spending time and resources trying to root out extremists from it could alienate a large number of people and not prevent the attacks anyway, he argued.

He said: “The Government could get bogged down in regulating one community’s religion. It could create a very negative atmosphere.

“I don’t say this because I’m soft on the issue. Ultimately, it’s a practical thing. It’s something that governments are not well qualified to address.